Sunday, March 24, 2013

Saturday Late on the Lower East Side

I AM MY WORLD explores the specific depiction of the exterior self, either visage, body, or interior persona materially manifested, to create an accrual of images and myths of the self.” David Gibson, Curator 
Rebecca Morgan, two portraits

My favorite one for its density, and wild-eyed quality

Elisabeth Lund, morphing through a variety of identities.
Iris print with ink on top by Pippip Ferner
John Tomlinson and Samira Abbassy: unexpected urban and folk perspectives.
Lots of sculptural and photographic imagery with sets + people/dolls/ puppets interacting.
Loved the fake quality in this triptych by Hilde Frantzen, which nods to three lurid masked-protagonist photos by Sara Tandero and Tine Isachsen and a strange Christina Dallas photo/installation across the room. This show by Gibson pairs Norwegian and NY artists and offers surprise combinations of works that tease eye and brain--as if looking in a mirror and seeing someone who is the unruly, raw, playful and open version of you.

Rochelle Feinstein at On Stellar Rays, two paintings, generously factured thought-ideas,

and two more, a humorous combination of photograph + facture, harking back to an aesthetic from an earlier time--black and white film Caligari-style, plus 1960s and 1970s video works, happening documents...

A wonderful surprise, the mylar orb inside the window,
"I Am My World"...

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Philip Pearlstein at St. Petersburg Fine Art Museum, FL

Philip Pearlstein's survey exhibition: an especially wonderful insight into the life of one painter in an intimate and unexpected venue, the Museum of Fine Art, St. Petersburg, FL.
Link to article by Lennie Bennett in the Tampa Bay Times: Things To Do: Philip Pearlstein


One of the Pearlsteins. The gallery's main room had a breathtaking wall, this one of three on same.

Pearlstein's compositional ambition reverberated throughout the room, echoing history painting from the past.



Above: Ingres, Poussin
Pearlstein's flatfooted approach unleashes a passionate temperament for composition. In painting after painting, he documents the stillness within the studio-cavern, laid bare by raking light and panoramic views. Pearlstein's innate feeling for rotation imbues the space with unexpected arabesques, twists and turns giving 'push and pull' new vibrancy.